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Get Me Into The White House And You Won't Have To Vote Anymore

7/29/2024

I've always held this truth to be self evident that if Donald Trump is elected back into the White House he'll stay there basking in autocracy for the rest of his life, and no one, that is to say none of the law makers and law enforcers who have the power to do so, will make him leave because Donald Trump is never held accountable for his wrongdoing. (All right, he was convicted of 34 felonies, but so what? Has that conviction resulted in the least inconvenience for Trump? Does anyone actually believe that it ever will?)
As to why I believe that Donald Trump, if elected, has no intention of leaving after his term of office is up, well, there's the fact that he already tried once to stay in power after he was voted out by spurring his disciples to invade the U.S. Capitol.
And since then Trump has dropped hints that he'll try again, as when he wrote on his Truth Social site in December of 2022 that his loss of the Presidential election was a massive fraud that "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution." And last May while speaking at a National Rifle Association event Trump brought up that Franklin D. Roosevelt served four terms and pondered regarding himself, "Are we going to be considered three term?"
And finally, three days ago Donald Trump just came right out and said it point blank several times during a speech to a congregation of his devotees at the conservative Christian Turning Point conference:
“You have to go out at least this election, and just get us into that beautiful White House. You won’t have to (vote) anymore...Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians...You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again — we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
Any questions? Anybody terrified?

References:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they-wont-have-vote-after-this-election-2024-07-27/

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html

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Cocnut Tree Army? KHive? brat? Whatever, I'm On Board!

7/26/2024

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One week ago I, along with many of my fellow Americans, believed with a heavy heart that the United States was going down the same inevitable path that so many other societies have gone down throughout the course of history, away from democracy into autocracy.

But in the past week the universe has flipped several times:
Five days ago President Joe Biden stepped down from running for another term.

Three days ago Kamala Harris garnered enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee for President

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, for the past two days, and for the first time since I can remember, Donald Trump's name was nowhere on the front page of the New York Times or the Columbus Dispatch.

Which has been a most welcome respite.
But surely most amazing among all these remarkable happenings has been the enormous grass roots youth movement - or movements? - in support of Kamala Harris that have sprung up just in the past five days and taken off like wild fire across social media, news media, the whole mass mega meta media universe.
There's the already ubiquitous Coconut Tree video-clip-seen-round-the-world of Kamala Harris telling the story of how her mother admonished her that she didn't fall out of a coconut tree, then Kamala punctuating the story with her big jolly laugh,

And while the internet cognoscenti have been discussing, dissecting, and digging for the true significance of Kamala Harris's coconut tree anecdote, her legion of young fans aren't much concerned with the whys and wherefores of the story, but rather have recruited themselves into a Coconut Tree army, embracing the coconut and the coconut tree as their symbols.

For those five or ten people on the planet who haven't yet seen the "Coconut Tree" video clip, here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/br6EHiAWJ_M?feature=share
And then there's the KHive (pronounced K-Hive). This is the original Kamala Harris online fan group that formed back in 2020 in support of Harris in her first presidential run. Though the KHive quieted down during Harris's years as Vice-President, the group has buzzed back to life this week - as #KHive - all over X, TikTok and Instagram.
And then there's brat. In truth, though I've been scrolling around the 'net trying to figure exactly what brat is and exactly how it relates to Kamala Harris, I can't quite wrap my head around it. I'm starting to think that you have to have been born in this century or late in the last one to completely get what brat is.
In any case, I did make the effort to understand, and what I've come up with - I think - is that brat (with a small b) is the title of a music album with a lime green cover,

...by a British pop star named Charli XCX.

Now, I don't know whether the word "brat" was already in the youth lexicon and Ms. XCX named her album after the word, or whether she coined the word and from there it became part of the Gen Z lingo.
In any case the word, according to what I read on Yahoo News, now refers to a movement called "brat summer" that "pretty much rejects the norm and embraces the unapologetic. Think edgy, imperfect, and confident."
At some point over the past few days Charli XCX posted on social media that "Kamala is brat." And then a Charli XCX fan and Kamala Harris supporter created this oh-so-appealing video of clips of Harris put to music from "brat" and posted it on X:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1808510079382982870
I can't say I'm surprised that the video has gone viral, as I for one can't stop watching it. And though I've got almost half a century on the Gen Z crowd, I've gone and joined the Coconut Tree Army.
And my heart is now light as a feather and full of hope.

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Gladness And Sadness Over Joe Biden

7/23/2024

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Sunday afternoon, July 21 (but was it really only the day before yesterday? Already it seems like weeks ago) I received a call from my daughter.
She answered my "Hi, Honey," with "Mom! You heard if from me first!"
"Heard what?" I said.
"Heard what?" she said. "Mom, what's the news you've been waiting to hear and hoping to hear more than anything else in the world?"
Now, I'll admit that in this family we have nothing if not a flair for hyperbole and the dramatic. Still, I wondered if I dared guess...
"Has Joe Biden dropped out?" I tremulously asked.
My daughter's happy whoop gave me my answer and my joy-o-meter shot up until it rang the bell.
But it was only as long as it took for me to click open my phone and see the headline:

...and the picture:

...before my elation was deflated, and all the aggravation, all the frustration I'd felt for the past few weeks over Biden's refusal to step down from the Presidential race - the same aggravation and frustration shared by millions of other Americans - melted away and was replaced by a rush of sadness and affection for him.
Now Joe Biden was no longer the stubborn old man who refused to leave when it was time, but the man who had given a life of service to his country, soldiered on through personal sorrows, and, as President, shepherded the country back from an economically debilitating pandemic while pushing through an ambitious agenda that brought improvements in infrastructure, technology, public safety, and healthcare.
He was a leader who, armed with his conscience, took on the challenges of a turbulent, war-torn, crisis-ridden world while at home fighting a hostile Congress whose members were pledged, not to the welfare of our country, but to the whims and wishes of a would-be American dictator.

And now, with this news that Joe Biden was leaving the presidential race, glad as I was to hear the news, I felt sorry that it had to be this way. Not sorry that Biden was leaving - because he did have to, it was past time - but because of the grief and sense of loss that he was suffering over it. And, while mixed in with hope and anticipation, my own sense of grief and loss for him.
While roaming through the news outlets I came across this video commentary by CNN commentator Van Jones, in which Jones gave an emotional speech on Biden's decision to drop out.

Here's the link to the video:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/21/politics/video/van-jones-reaction-joe-biden-exits-2024-election-digvid
For me, Van Jones's words say it all. Maybe they say it all for you, too.

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A Strange Pineapple Occurrence At Kroger's

7/19/2024

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Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"   http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
   "Hail Mary"    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
"Tropical Depression"       https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

A Strange Pineapple Occurrence At Kroger's

A couple of days ago I was in the checkout lane at Kroger's,

...ringing up my things.
Behind me was woman whom I'd pegged as a fellow Baby Boomer loading her groceries behind mine on the conveyor belt. As she was setting a tall plastic container of pineapple chunks on the belt the container slipped from her hand and hit the floor, scattering the pieces of pineapple.
The woman looked aghast and stood frozen. I gave her a sympathetic look - who among us hasn't found ourselves in an awkward public situation - but she continued to stand there with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.
"It's okay, I'll help you," I said, and I got down on the floor and started scooping the pineapple back into the container. The woman then snapped out of her shock and began helping me gather the pineapple.
"This isn't where I shop," she said, as if that explained why the pineapple slipped from her hand. "I just didn't know where anything was." She sounded upset and slightly dazed.
"Oh, I know," I said breezily. "I always shop here and half the time I don't where anything is."
After we'd gotten all the pineapple off the floor and back into the container I said, "Don't worry about it, I'll give this to the cashier to throw away and she'll get you more pineapple."
However by that time the cashier had arrived to dispose of the fallen pineapple and clean up the residual mess on the floor.
The woman then held up her hands and said in a woeful voice, "It's all sticky."
With my own sticky hands I reached into my purse and pulled out two wet wipes, one for her and one for myself. The woman accepted the wipe and said, "I usually carry some of these in my purse. I don't know why I didn't have any today."
And that was the end of our exchange.
Now, this would have been a pretty unremarkable episode except for one rather strange thing: The woman didn't thank me. At all. Not once. Not for helping her clean up the pineapple. Not for offering to bring the container to the cashier. Not for giving her a wet wipe. It wasn't that I actually cared about being thanked or that it bothered me, except that it just felt...off. Incomplete. Like hearing a well-known song from which the last note is left out so you keep listening for it in your brain.
"Thank you" is so much a part of our day. Seems we say it and hear it all day long: with family and friends, in every public place we go, in all the phone calls we make, in all the emails we write and receive. So many of our countless daily human interactions great and small involve thanking or being thanked that we don't even think of it, we're so programmed from childhood to thank and to be thanked that it's kind of an unconscious response. Like breathing. You say "thank you" without thinking and think nothing of it hearing it said to you.
Until you don't. That is to say, until you don't hear "thank you" where it normally belongs. Then you find yourself - that is to say, I found myself - waiting for it. Only because it's the normal thing. And when this normal thing was missing from my interaction with the lady who dropped her pineapple at Kroger's, it made the whole interaction seem...strange.
I found myself wondering if a person could be so rattled or in so much distress - whether over a dropped container of pineapple or something of much greater import that had nothing to do with pineapple - that one's social wiring, or whatever it is that automatically makes us say "thank you," could short out?
(Or am I seriously thinking too much?)

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The Shooting Of Donald Trump Wasn’t An Act Of Political Violence. It Was Just Another Act Of Gun Violence.

7/15/2024

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A young male, an introverted socially inept loner in his teens or twenties (or occasionally older) who had anger issues, or had been bullied in school, or had a known history of mental problems, or all of the above or none of the above, easily acquires an AR-15 with which he opens fire at a public place or event.
How many times has this story been in the news?
The shooter's victims have been elementary school children, high school students, college students, shoppers, concert-goers, movie-goers, parade watchers, night club patrons, worshippers in a church, worshippers in a synagogue, worshippers in a mosque. And most recently, along with several other victims in attendance at a campaign rally, a former U.S. President who's been a staunch defender of the right of anyone and everyone to own weapons of mass shootings.
The irony is there for any one who wishes to see it. But, in our state of national shock, disbelief, and, I suppose, decency, most have been choosing to ignore that irony, at least for now. Instead there begins what is promised to be a thorough investigation by the FBI, with a search for the shooter's motive.
But...the shooter's motive? Seriously?
Here was a bookish, waifish 20-year-old boy who was bullied at at school and who used to sit alone at lunch.

Must we really wonder how his motive was any different from the motives of all the other friendless, bullied, outcast boys who lacked the ability to fit in anywhere or with anyone, but who could easily make a name for himself and show them all by grabbing himself a gun and committing a shocking, horrific nationally newsworthy crime?
The shooting of Donald Trump is being called an act of political violence by some politicians and members of the media.

But one member of the media - me - is here to say that, even though in this case the shooter aimed for the stars in choosing Donald Trump as his target, and even though this particular shooting may well have more critical repercussions on the fate of our nation than the tragic, heartbreaking shootings we've seen up until this point, the shooting at Trump's Pennsylvania rally wasn't an act of political violence. It was just another act of All-American gun violence by a mentally unhinged young American male with his AR-15. And though, all right, it can't be proven, still I guarantee that if young Thomas Matthew Crooks hadn't fallen upon a glorious opportunity for fame and vengeance in a local Donald Trump rally, he would have settled for a more quotidian target: a school, a supermarket, or maybe, God forbid, the nursing home where he worked as an aide.
In the wake of the shooting of Donald Trump, our politicians are calling for unity. Yes, we do need to finally come together in unity: Unity in our resolve for better gun laws, especially for a ban on our national weapon of mass shootings.

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Farewell, My Sugar

7/13/2024

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Farewell, My Sugar

Last week I was feeling down enough over all the news about the state of our Union.

But then I read some news that really dropped a big dark grey cloud over my world. This news arrived in a message from my doctor's office that conveyed the result of one of the lab tests taken as part of my yearly wellness check up.
Here is what the message said:

 Here is what I read:

 The words were accompanied by a chart which appeared to confirm my dire condition:

Oh my God, I thought, I've almost got diabetes! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
I knew there were certain ways diabetics - and, I assumed, people like myself who were heading straight for diabetes - must eat. I also knew (or thought I knew) that diabetics aren't supposed to eat sweets. I love sweets. The thought of having to go through life without sweets was what really darkened the cloud: No more apple pie with ice cream.

No more birthday cake with ice cream.

No more bread pudding with whipped cream.

No more French Toast with whip cream.

And, should providence grant me another trip to Hawaii, no more daily trips to the Kulu Kulu Honolulu bakery for one of those those heavenly, heavenly, cream puffs.

The thought of those cream puffs almost brought tears to my eyes.
But, in spite of being somewhat in a state of concern - all right, I was freaking out - I knew this was one of those moments when one must embrace the reality of one's situation with a stiff upper lip and a resolve to do whatever needs to be done.
But I was at a nervous loss as to what needed to be done. Or rather, what needed to be eaten. Or mostly, not eaten.
It was in this state of agitation that I sent this message to my GP:

I also asked them to send the results of my A1c test to my endocrinologist, whom I have to check in with a couple of times a year because I apparently have a thyroid condition called Hashimoto's Disease. (I once asked my endocrinologist why I had to keep getting checked all the time, since I felt fine. They then ran down a list of awful outcomes that could development from Hashimoto's Disease should it someday opt to get up and boogie, so to speak. I now wondered if maybe this diabetes was the sneaky little Hashimoto's doing).
My doctor responded to my fraught message fairly quickly, not exactly telling me to take a chill pill, but that was the gist of their response. They emphasized that I was PREdiabetic, not technically diabetic, and that, while avoiding concentrated sweets (candy, etc) was the recommendation, they wouldn't recommend that I deprive myself, but rather just avoid eating concentrated sweets in excess.
They added that my endocrinologist would likely recommend the same thing at this time, but added that they'd nonetheless send my test results over.
This message made me feel better. For about five minutes. Then I started ruminating over, besides candy, what exactly else was included in the "concentrated sweets" taxonomic group. Cake? Pie? Ice cream? Cookies? Kulu Kulu Honolulu cream puffs?
I waited until I thought enough time would have passed for my GP to get my lab results over to my endocrinologist, then I called my endocrinologist's office.
Now, several days later I related my tale of prediabetic woe to a nurse practitioner friend who chuckled and assured me that my endocrinologist had far more serious cases to worry about than mine. My friend, like my GP, didn't think my test result was the 5-alarm fire that it at first seemed to me.
However, even though the endocrinologist likely did have many more serious cases to deal with that day than mine, soon after I called a nurse from the office returned my call. (Mayhaps, judging from my tone of voice in the message I left, they were more concerned about my mental state than my prediabetes).
The nurse, very kindly, very patiently, answered my questions and addressed my concerns. She explained that type 1 diabetes was an autoimmune disorder that no change in diet could cure. Prediabetes, on the other hand, was for type 2 and could be reversed by changes in diet. However the nurse, like my GP, seemed not overly worried about my test results: my A1c number, though it looked alarming (to me, at least) on paper, was actually not all that close to diabetes. And I'm far from being overweight. I could probably walk the number back to within the normal range where it had always been until now by cutting back on the sugar. But I didn't have to give up sweets completely. And I didn't need to give up my vacation cream puffs.
Still, I had enough of a scare that I decided to give up sweets, maybe making exceptions for special occasions. But on a day-to-day basis, no more sugar on my cereal, no more jam on my bread, no more ice cream or cookies, no more watermelon gummy slices.
I was told that cutting out sugar would make me feel better. I haven't had any sweets for a week. I don't feel better. But then, that's probably because I haven't cut out the news.

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Joe Biden's Catch 22

7/6/2024

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Books by Patti Liszkay
available on Amazon:

   "Equal And Opposite Reactions"   http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
   "Hail Mary"    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
"Tropical Depression"       https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

Joe Biden's Catch 22

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a Catch 22 is "a problem in which the solution is denied by the problem itself."
The phrase was originally coined by author Joseph Heller in his 1961 novel of the same name about a World War II fighter pilot who was too crazy to realize he shouldn't be flying any more missions. But if the pilot didn't want to fly any more missions that would be proof that he was sane and thus capable of continuing to fly missions.
After watching Joe Biden's interview last night with George Stephanopoulos all I could think of was that the United States now has on its hands a Catch 22: Our President refuses to acknowledge that his woeful performance at last week's debate was anything more than a cold; he hasn't even watched a recording of himself at the debate; he refuses to have a physical and neurological exam; he won't listen to the concerns of those around him over his mental lapses;  he believes the polls are lying and his poll numbers are actually fine; he quipped that he won't consider dropping out of the Presidential race unless the Lord Almighty comes down and tells him to. All those are signs that our President isn't thinking clearly or realistically enough to lead our country for another four years. Mayhaps not even for one more year. In fact last night Joe Biden looked and sounded like a stubborn octogenarian in decline who absolutely refuses to hand over the keys to his car.
On the other hand, if Joe Biden were aware of the lapses that everyone around him sees, if he acknowledged that his debate performance was telling, and if he agreed that it was now time for him to hand on the torch to someone else, that would indicate lucid thinking on his part and he wouldn't be doubling down and digging in his heels that he won't, won't won't leave the Presidential race. If Joe Biden were thinking reasonably enough to lead our country in the future he'd step back from doing so now.
   “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” said Biden at last night's interview. Then he added, “The Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”
But Joe Biden is wrong about that: The Lord did come down and left a message on the night of the debate. And the message was loud and clear.

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We Love You, Joe, But It's Time To Go. Now.

7/1/2024

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Up until last Thursday night I, staunchest of Biden supporters, tuned out the media chatter that Joe Biden needed to step down from running for a second Presidential term because of his age.
But last Thursday night's debate was a bucket of cold water in my face. Up on that stage I saw to my shock a frail, sometimes confused elderly person who looked as if he needed to be home in bed and not on a debate stage. And definitely not in the Oval Office for another four and a half years.
This dismal observation was only reinforced when Biden was led shuffling off the stage by his wife Jill, who was soon after captured on video sounding like a school teacher talking to a small child when she assured Joe that he did a great job at the debate because he answered every question and knew all the facts. The pathos was almost unbearable.
But what I saw that night revealed and unequivocally drove home for me, and not for me alone, that Joe Biden is in no physical or likely mental condition to serve another term as President of the United States. This wasn't a bad debate. It was the inescapable toll of age.
Did President Biden look much better at a rally the following afternoon? Yes, he did. However that event was held earlier in the day than the debate was, and Biden was reading from a teleprompter before an energizing crowd. This is consistent with a revelation in an article published two days ago by the news site Axios in which White House aides shared that the President is generally engaged only between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm and that outside that time range he tends to be fatigued and prone to verbal miscues.
Which begs the question: How long before the six-hour window of capability for the President shrinks from six hours down to five hours, then four hours, then no hours?
In a perfect or at least sensible world, those nearest, dearest and most listened to by Joe Biden would have been hit with the same bucket of cold water that hit me and many others of the 50 million who watched the debate, and by today President Biden would have been standing before the American people announcing that, due to his advanced age, he would not be running for another term.
But as of today Joe Biden, with the support of his family and his aides, appears to be doubling down on the message that he will stay in the race. This is bad. Many of us have had to deal with an aged parent no longer able to drive who won't hand over their car keys, or who can no longer care for themselves but won't leave their homes for a care facility. And then there is the unfortunate case of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who, at 87 years old and suffering from pancreatic cancer, refused to retire from her seat on the Supreme Court. It can be next to impossible to get an elderly person to give up what they need to but don't want to give up.
Nor does it help that some Democratic voices are saying that Biden has to stay in the race because he has the greatest chance of any other potential Democratic candidates of beating Donald Trump in November. But how can that be true for someone in such an obvious state of age-related decline as we all saw in Biden last Thursday night? In fact the consideration needs to be not how competent he is now of leading our country but how competent he'll be a year from now, two years from now, four years from now. Age, sadly, does not move backwards.
Joe Biden has been a great President with a legacy of numerous important accomplishments during his tenure. But last Thursday night we saw what we saw and heard what we heard. I believe in my heart that there is someone out there who can now step in for Biden, run on his platform and have a better than fighting chance of defeating the amoral, self-serving, narcissistic and vengeance-driven felon who may otherwise glide into the White House on Election Day.
Please, President Biden. Please step out of the race. Now.

Reference:
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president

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Books by Patti Liszkay​available on Amazon:

​Joe Biden's Catch 22

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Books by Patti Liszkay
available on Amazon:

Joe Biden's Catch 22